


2 girls sittin' in a faery circle, two feet apart 'cause one is about to shapeshift into an unknown animal and might want to kill everyone while in the form of said animal

by Mistressaq



Category: Canada's Drag Race RPF, RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Animal Transformation, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fluff and Humor, Friendship/Love, Slight gay pining, bc you know i had to do it to em
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26537059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistressaq/pseuds/Mistressaq
Summary: Priyanka is gearing up for midnight on her 16th birthday, when she will Turn for the first time in her life. There's so many questions she doesn't have the answers to, and by her side for the whole process is her  winged friend, Lemon, sworn to keep the circle shut for the night.
Relationships: Lemon/Priyanka (Canada's Drag Race RPF)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	2 girls sittin' in a faery circle, two feet apart 'cause one is about to shapeshift into an unknown animal and might want to kill everyone while in the form of said animal

**Author's Note:**

> I decided that (1) non sexual use of the f bomb still qualifies me for a G rating since i actually challenged myself to keep Coarse Language to a minimum for this one.

Priyanka’s family understood her request to be alone when she turned for the first time. As the night grew darker, as the clock advanced closer and closer to midnight, she felt fear bubbling up from her empty stomach. The fact that the sixteenth birthday was also a fasting day didn’t help her blood sugar or her anxiety. She already felt ill, and it wasn't even close to transformation time. 

She all but collapsed when she reached her destination: the Faery circle in the middle of the woods. Her family had resisted letting her go out of the house tonight, until she told them her plan. If she turned while inside the circle, the Fair Folk would guard her, not letting her out until daybreak. Also helpful was the message sent by the local Fae (written by exactly one of them) saying they would protect her during her coming-of-age. She calls out to her now. “Lem! Lemon, are you there?”

“Of course, silly.”

Priyanka jumps, startled by the sudden appearance of her friend and fae, named for her associated tree. Even in this darkness, the fae’s unnatural yellow colored hair gives off a glow. Pri isn’t sure if she’s grateful for the illumination, or afraid of the ghoulish shadows it casts on the surroundings. 

“Oops,” teases Lemon. Her angular face pinched up in a smirk. “Did I scare you?”

Priyanka rolls her eyes. “Sure, scare the crap outta me on the worst day of my life.”

Lemon rolls her head and puts her fists on her slight hips. “It’s all about perspective, you know that.” 

Now it’s Pri’s turn to roll her eyes, having heard this speech from almost every member of her family, sans Kiara, who is in a no-talking phase. “Maybe it wouldn’t freak me out if I knew what was gonna happen!” she throws her hands in the air. “But this whole transformation thing is all outta my control. I’ll stop being me and I’ll become something else. And It’s entirely likely I’ll be one of those shifters who loses themselves in their second form, not only will I not physically be me anymore, but my mind might go beastly too!” She shoots a glare at Lemon. “How will that change with _perspective--”_ she all but spits the word. “Huh?”

Lemon presses her pale lips in a thin line. She folds her hands in front of her and brings her knees to her chest. Her bright yellow dress rides up on her lean legs and Priyanka can’t help but notice. Usually Lem would wink at her to make her blush, but now she just keeps that sober expression. Her spotted, sheer wings flutter behind her with an almost twitchy motion. Priyanka chews her lip, looking away from her friend.

Enough time passes that Priyanka feels the tension leaving her body. She feels bad for lashing out at Lemon, and turns to apologize, but then Lemon asks about her dreams.

“Huh?” Priyanka doesn’t usually remember her dreams. Though, she knows Lemon has made cameos in a few of them. She doesn’t dare bring that up to ask if appearing in dreams is a thing Fae can do, for fear that if it isn’t, that would just give Lemon more fuel to tease her with. 

“There’s rumors that ancestors or other spirits send visions to shifter kids before they come of age, give them hints.” Lemon pulls out her Fae flask-- a sack made of preserved flower petals and water-resistant leaves. She takes a sip and then offers it to Priyanka. 

Pri shakes her head. “We fast before a transformation.”

Lemon looks into her flask with a curious expression. “I mean it’s sugar water, does that count as breaking a fast?”

Pri inhales, stares at the drink in the fae’s hands. “Probably.” She holds out her hand. “Gimme a swig.” 

Lemon beams. Pri takes a single gulp’s worth, hoping she’ll find some relief from her headache and shaking hands. 

Pri sighs and hands back the flask. “Our ancestors never tell me anything.” 

Lemon takes a swig and stows her drink. “Some kids grow up with absent fathers, some have absent ancestors.” 

Pri chuckles. 

“It’s an unfortunate fact of life,” Lemon says. 

When they first started hanging out, Pri had been cautious and refused anything Lemon offered her. After a dozen or so times, Lemon had looked at her and said, “You know the faery-food-entrapment thing doesn’t apply to shifters.” Priyanka still hadn’t fully trusted the faerie, but when Lemon pointed out that the Shifters originated from Fae, she did remember that part of the origin story. “Plus,” Lemon had added. “High ranking shifters come to Faery Court all the time. They come, eat, drink, dance, and they leave.” Priyanka accepted Lemon’s flask for the first time. And nearly spit out the nectar at the next thing her friend said: “Plus, why would I trap you? Then I’d have to go seeing your stupid face for the rest of eternity.”

That quick, snide wit had put Priyanka at ease so many times. And of all the people she could be spending such a stressful night with, she’s glad it’s Lemon. They lie in the grass, side-by-side. Listen to the sounds of night in the forest around them. 

A thought occurs to her and she lifts herself onto her elbow, facing Lemon. Lemon mirrors her. “Can I tell you something mostly embarrassing and also kinda sad?”

“Always,” says Lemon. Her leafy green eyes are so close.

Pri averts her gaze, talks to Lemon’s skirt. “I hadn’t gotten any visions or dreams about the transformation, so… I started to obsess over cloud leopards? Like looking up documentaries and books and making them my screensaver and background. I put up pictures of them all around my room so no matter where I looked I’d be seeing a leopard.”

“Okaay?” Lemon prods. “Whyyy would you do that?”

Pri falls back into the grass, squeezes her eyes shut. “Because if you do a thing a lot especially before bed you’ll likely have dreams about that thing.”

She hears an exhale from her friend. She doesn’t know if it’s a “pri you’re so desperate thats sad” scoff or a “that's the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” scoff or a “babe that's so smart and thoughtful marry me right here in this faery circle” noise. Of the three, Pri knew the option she wanted most was also the least likely.

What she hears is Lemon’s voice growing wistful. “If only that’s how it actually worked. Unfortunately everyone who tries to change fate or avoid prophecies just… make it worse.” 

Pri glances over to see her friend is no longer looking at her, but rather at the stars. For now, it was the Earth’s night sky above them. The Faery sky had stars that moved and cycled and swirled in a hypnotizing and headachey way. With how her mind is going right now, Priyanka is very grateful to have static stars overhead.

She must fall asleep at some point, because the next thing she knows is Lemon shaking her arm to wake her up. “Pri…” she whispers. “Pri, it’s starting, look at your fingers.”

Priyanka sits straight up and fully extends her arms. She splays her fingers as wide as they’ll go and even in the dimness of moonlight and Lemon’s faery glow, she sees exactly what her friend means. The tips of her fingers, her nails, to the last knuckle, are darkening. Of course her skin is already brown, but what foundation lines usually call something like ‘warm honey’ or ‘sunkissed suede’ or, like, ‘tan’. But her fingertips are going straight up… Crayola Crayon Brown. “Okaay,” Pri says, stress evident in her voice. “Brown. Brown feet brown toes, brown. Lots of animals are brown.” She looks at Lemon. “What… brown. Animal. What’s a brown animal I could be turning into.”

“Uh-um,” Lemon searches the air. “Deer, a doe, a female deer. That’d be cute. You’re already super elegant, I can see you as a deer, loping over fences--”

“Yeah, that’d be real cool, Lem,” Priyanka seethes. “If it wasn’t freaking DEER SEASON!!” She shoves her offensive fingers in the dirt, looks panic ridden at her companion. “I’m only sixteen, I’m too young to get shot through the eye by a trophy hunter!!”

“Okay the _vast_ majority of hunters are terrible shots.” Lemon tries unsuccessfully to conceal an eyeroll. She purses her lips and rethinks her tone. “Plus, no one hunts at night, when dusk hits, they go home to their wives named Beth Anne and eat casserole and drink terrible beer.” This time, she tries to be genuinely comforting. 

Hearing Lemon speak this way is so out of character it only ends up freaking Priyanka out more. Lemon’s acute humor can’t even save her from this mess. “Oh God, what else? Oh god oh god I feel hair, my fingers are growing _hair_ and it _stings--”_

Lemon tries to help by drowning out Priyanka’s panic. “Okay brown animals-- wild dogs… are not that brown generally. Squirrels, squirrels can be that color brown.”

Priyanka throws her head back. “Why am I only thinking of bunnies? I can’t stop thinking of that book where the bunnies are people and they all die at the end.”

Lemon shakes her head and scratches the back of her neck. “Yeah, I never paid attention to human literature. I have no idea what you’re talking about sorry.” 

Priyanka curses. Lemon doesn’t even try and joke about crude language, she just searches for the next semi-comforting thing to say. “Ah, well, rabbits are known to symbolize fear and anxiety, so that might be the ancestors finally getting in touch with you!”

Priyanka wails. “I’m gonna go out for transformation night and come back pregnant with quintuplets!”

“Okay you yourself have told me that’s not how that works,” Lemon derides.

Priyanka looks down and sees the dark, muskrat, beaver brown crawling up the backs of her palms and yelps. “How long ‘til midnight?” cries the shifter. 

“Oh, Pri, it’s barely started…” Lemon cringes at the thought of Pri having to go through this thing for another hour. She watches her friend sink onto her elbows. Something crops up in the back of her mind. “Maybe…” her voice trails off.

Pri didn’t miss a beat. “Maybe _what?”_ she spits. 

Lemon folds her hands and leans away from Priyanka. “I’ve heard… I’ve heard stories of Fae helping with the transition.” 

Priyanka glances up at her, eyes wide with need. “How?”

Lemon chews her lip. “I mean it’s usually in stories where the shifter is still young and doesn’t have all their powers unlocked and it’s not the right time for a transformation but the Fae can… speed along the process??” 

Priyanka pulls herself upright. “Do it.”

Lemon shifts a couple centimeters back. “I don’t know how it works though, I might hurt you.”

“I’m _already_ hurting!” Priyanka all but screams. “My freaking _bones_ are rearranging-- I think into claws???” her voice pitches up. “My _muscles_ in my hands are tearing. I feel _every_ one of them, Lem you have to _try_ at LEAST!”

“Okay, okay.” Lemon rises to her feet, translucent wings jittering nervously. She takes up her stance, just like she was trained. “Okay,” she murmurs, more to steady herself than Priyanka. She reaches out with her magic, to feel and sense the energy and nature around her, and sees Priyanka as a flailing ball of untapped energy. And reaching further, she sees caged at the center of that energy is… the animal. And though she can’t quite make it out… 

“Well?” demands Priyanka.

Lemon keeps the animal in her Sight. “I think... you’re not going to be very happy with me.”

Priyanka hisses. “So we’ve got nothin’ to lose!”

Lemon bites the inside of her lip. It’s like pulling the flower out of a bud, speeding up what would have happened naturally. She reaches inside, focuses on that animal fighting to be free, and she pulls away layer and layer of petals, layers of Priyanka. The whole process can’t take more than ten seconds and she perceives Priyanka screaming bloody murder, but then it’s done. The outside now matches the inside. And where her friend had been hunched over in agony sits… well…

“Is… did it work? Wait. How’d you get…” Priyanka’s lower jaw moves along with her speech, but the whole thing looks unreal. She’d gone from being pretty tall for a girl of her age to having her head mere centimeters away from the ground. 

Lemon goes to shrink herself to a size relative to Pri’s, but... 

Priyanka circles around her spot in the grass for a bit, looking for her body. All she manages to do is catch a glimpse of a long tail, the same shade of dark brown as the rest of her has become. That, and a good look at her front paws. Her teeny ears twitch. “I don’t get it.” She looks up at her faery friend, who now towers over her. “Lem, what am I?”

Lemon pulls out her hand mirror and sets it on the ground so Pri can see herself. The shifter scurries over on little feet that barely make a sound. Lemon stifles a sound that would either have been a laugh or an ‘aww’. Keeping a straight face is a test of her will so strong that she thinks she’ll tell her father about it and ask for a medal of valor. 

“What…” Priyanka gets so close to the mirror her pointed snout fogs up the glass. “Hey Lem, any chance you could turn up the glow? I’ve got no clue what I’m looking at right now.”

Lemon summons a ball of light to help her friend come to terms with… this. Now they can see Pri’s full body in more detail. Her coat is more spotty than solid brown, with dense greyish speckles for camouflage. Her tail is about the length of her body and it’s like, feathered, somewhat like a squirrel. But she’s so much bigger than any squirrel she’s seen before! She finds one of her footprints from before, and yeah, Priyanka’s body, excluding tail, is well over a foot long. The tail alone is close to a foot. That’s weird-- going from a human person with no tail at all to… this. 

“What kinda fat mousy ferret…” Priyanka shakes her brown furry head incredulously.

“Whatever you are, it’s not a woodland animal.” Lemon holds out her palms, shrugging. “Wish I could be of more help but… I’m outta my depth here.” 

Priyanka scurries back a little, thinking maybe if she sees herself from more of a distance it’ll help. She crouches low to the ground, pops her head up. Lemon giggles and Pri shoots her a dirty look, which only ends up making her faery friend crack up more. She turns around as she tries to get a hold of herself. 

Pri shakes her head. Then she starts to feel something pull in her throat, and she thinks to suppress it, but she’s already hearing the noise come out of her nose. It’s a jittery chirping, not quite like a bird chirp, more like the sound the housecat makes when she’s eyeing up tasty looking birds. 

“What on _earth_ was that?” she hisses. She looks from her reflection in the mirror to Lemon, and back again. “What-- what kinda-- _aauuuututtutt--”_ She claps her paws over her mouth. It’s awkward, because her face isn’t flat anymore, and it doesn’t feel like her paws should be on her face now. She lowers herself down off her haunches. 

Lemon snorts. Priyanka glares. As if her glare still held any potency. 

Her mind is trying to puzzle it out. Her inner monologue is all salty like “how come everybody else gets self explanatory jaguar or snake or freaking bear and i get this obscure ferret-squirrel?” For now though, she rediverts that energy to the part of her brain that’s trying to solve the problem: what am I? Mammal. Terrestrial. Ratlike. Probably for digging and living in holes in the ground? But not a meerkat. She opens her mouth to examine her teeth in the mirror. Pointy, sharp. Okay, meat eater. Something of her size would eat the meat of… bugs. Definitely. Rodents, probably. Lizards, definitely; snakes--

Priyanka’s head perks up instinctually. “Oh, my, God.” 

“Whatwhatwhat??” Lemon flutters down to her friend, shrinking about halfway in the process. 

The eyes that meet Lemon’s in that instant are unmistakably Priyanka’s. She is shook. She says, very quietly, in a voice that’s almost a whisper: “The fates. Are fucking racist.”

Lemon leans back, off-put by her usually straight-laced friend dropping the f-bomb. 

Then Priyanka starts yelling at the sky. 

“Y’all did NOT. Just because I have Indian heritage, give me MONGOOSE!” 

Lemon stumbles, half in trying to back away from her friend’s volume, half trying (and failing) to suppress her laughter.

“ ‘Oh what’s her name? Priyanka? Oh I know we’ll give her Rikki-tikki- _fricking_ -tavi!’” she blasts. “If you were GONNA be racist, couldn’t you have given me something COOL? Like a tiger? ‘Nooo we’re giving Pri the evil ferret people watch tear up a cobra on the internet.’ Screw y’all!” Priyanka takes off trotting toward the edge of the faery circle, only to smack right into an invisible wall. She rears her head around and Lemon again spreads her palms. 

“You _wanted_ to be kept inside the circle all night.” 

Priyanka sighs and starts back toward Lemon. “Alright then I guess I’m stuck with the mongoose for the rest of my life.” 

Lemon tilts her head. “Since you can technically break your fast now, I could summon up a little baby snake if you’re hungry.”

“Do _not_ even try it,” Pri warns.

Lemon holds up her hands in surrender. “Alright.” Satisfied that her friend won’t try and eat her anytime soon, she shrinks down the rest of the way until she’s only barely longer than Pri in her current form. 

They sit in silence for a bit, listening to the peaceful night, broken up by the cricket’s song. At the thought of the crickets, the mongoose's mouth starts to water. Priyanka whisper-shrieks. “Oh _noooo!”_

“What’s the matter?” Lemon asks over her shoulder. 

“I think…” she hangs her head. “I think I wanna try and eat some bugs.”

Lemon claps. “Now THAT I can do! Why don’t I gather you a little collection of different types like at a cheese tasting!”

Priyanka closes her eyes and answers through her pointed teeth. “That actually sounds nice. Thank you, Lemon.”

 _“Of course_ you’re welcome!” Lemon gushes. “Aren’t you so lucky to have a friend like me?”

Priyanka turns her head and mutters “I guess” just to get her friend off her back. But she knows not even that deep down, she really, truly is blessed to have Lemon by her side tonight.


End file.
